A Visual Guide To Facebook Security [INFOGRAPHIC]

There has been a LOT of press about Facebook security - both good and bad. If you've ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes - then check out this infographic by the good folks at PC Magazine:

By The Number - Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]

Feeling a little "Facebook-ed out"? Well, no wonder! You've probably spending waaayyyy too much time on there (along with everyone else):



SOURCE

Wordstream On Facebook's Epic FAILS [INFOGRAPHIC]

Seems that the good folks over at Wordstream are a little pissed off at Facebook... so, what better than to create a huge infographic taking their complaints to the masses?

Yeah, let me get some popcorn, this is gonna' be fun:



SOURCE

How Social Media Is Working For Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

If you're in business - chances are good that you're a "small" business - and you're in good company. According to the 2008 US Census data it's estimated that there are about 27,281,452 businesses - of which 21,351,320 (78%!) are "Nonemployer" businesses.

Yeah, I never really heard that term before, either.

Here's how the Census folks define a "Nonemployer" business:

Most nonemployers are self-employed individuals operating very small unincorporated businesses, which may or may not be the owner's principal source of income.

They go on to say:

Nonemployers account for a majority of all business establishments, but average less than 4 percent of all sales or receipts.

Oh, yeah, on top of that  and ANOTHER 4,661,829 have 9 or fewer employees. That means 95% of all businesses have less than 9 employees.

That's a serious number of folks.

If you're in the upper 5% - you can skip the infographic below - otherwise - stop reading this and fire up your Facebook account!



SOURCE

How To Get a Job At Google, Apple or Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]

As I was trolling the interweb this morning, I came across this infographic that was showing what kinds of job openings there are at the "big 3" (not automakers, tech employers).

It seems like there's a "Top 3" formula to getting hired at one of these companies:

3. Be smart;

2. Be able to communicate and use SEO words on resume (NOT "CV", but "Resume");

... and the number 1 way to get hired at one of these great tech companies....

... wait for it...

KNOW SOMEONE!

Buzz kill.




SOURCE

Is Social Media Making Us More "Media" and Less "Social"?

OK, so I've written a few times about my take on social media - and I'll admit - it has changed over time. I've gone from mocking it, to loving it, to somewhere in-between, to taking a break from it. It seems that everyone is so intent on updating their status, tweeting "the latest", joining (or being added to) a "circle" that we're forgetting one, teeny, tiny detail: we're not actually interacting with people. In real life.

"Innovention" Is Alive And Well

"Innovention" is alive and well, thank you very much. No, I'm not talking about the make-over of the old Disneyland "Carousel of Progress" - but I'm talking about innovation + invention = "innovention."

Swiping While Wiping

There's been a ton of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching in the publishing industry - and the blog universe about the "death of printed media." Everyone from media moguls to tech industry pundits to radio talk show hosts (yes, I know - radio is dead too - but that's for another post) - have been complaining about how the printed page is doomed - only to be replaced by (gasp!) electronic versions.

The Upside of Social Media

If you've read any of my earlier posts - you'll know that I've always had mixed feelings when it comes to social media.

On the one hand, it's a huge time-suck and it's easy to get distracted and spend useless hours updating your status(es), profile(s), and all responding to others' messages, opening cool links with YouTube videos in them, etc.

With so many social media outlet clamoring for attention - you also have to check multiple services with multiple logins - and then try to keep track of all the "friends" (or "followers" or whatever) you have on each service - and then post relevant stuff to that particular site.

Which site do you check most often? Where should you invest your time? If you have a Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, MySpace and Yammer accounts (which I do) - who the hell has time to check/update all those sites? Even with aggregation tools, it's a nightmare.

Every time I watch Twitter feeds live - I feel like I'm watching the matrix of humanity just like in the movie.

So, I've started to focus a lot of my attention on a couple of services: Twitter and Facebook. Just those two are enough for me at this point! Even then, I have a fairly large number of "friends" on Facebook - but it's nice to read the interesting status updates, browse other folks' pictures and just keep in touch with people.

There are a lot of sad moments, happy moments, silly moments and basically everything in between. I don't comment on a lot of the posts - I mainly just "lurk" - but there are some people who could just really use a bit of encouragement now and then - so I'll post a comment (or snarky remark!).

I don't know about you, but I feel a bit impotent writing "You're in our thoughts" or "You'll make it, don't worry" or some other equally dazzling comment. I mean, I really hope that person gets it worked out or that things turn around for them - or whatever - but it just feels like a store-bought card versus a hand-written one.

You never really know if what you said was even read - much less if it even helped the other person.

So, I've been sort of lax in my commenting of other people's status updates lately - but all that is going to change.

You see, this weekend I was on the receiving end of those comments - when Brenda went into the hospital with a heart attack scare (she's fine - heart is OK). Beyond the incredible support of our family (shout out to Theresa, Julie and my mom!) - the number of caring, thoughful posts on the status updates were something that really helped me out.

In the long hours sitting and waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting!) - I was able to update my status multiple times - and would find myself checking back every 10 minutes to see if anyone responded yet... and 90% of the time - someone did.

It feel really good to know that others were out there lending a sympathetic ear and offering their encouragement and support.

It was beyond just what they said (which was really encouraging) - it was the fact that they took the time to read my status update (among the 100's they have in their News Feed) - and then took the time to formulate a response.

It really made a difference to me - and was very moving.

For those of you who don't have a Facebook account yet - sign up at Facebook.com - and if you are on Facebook - look me up: facebook.com/bobcusick and "add" me as a friend (there's no "acquaintance" or "some jerk" buttons, unfortunately).

Once again, I want to THANK all the Facebook folks who responded to our situation over the weekend from the bottom of my heart.

The Future: Less IS More

After taking this week "off" from my social media commitments - I jumped back (literally) into the "stream" of the social collective this morning.

Now, those of you who know me know that I'm not the most "social" person out there - and that at the beginning of this wave of social media - I was skeptical (at best). But after being "out of the loop" for a week - I found that I actually missed the time-sucking, endless noise filtering and discovery of hidden gems in my social networks.

Really.

Just due to the sheer number of posts and the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and the fact that I actually need to do "work" as well - I'm finding that the thing I long for is not *less* information - but information that is categorized in the way that's important to me.

For example, I have limited my followings on Twitter to people that say stuff that I find interesting. Now, I'm only following 76 people - but damn Spanky - some of those folks Tweet in real time. Some of the time it's interesting, and some of the time it's just plain annoying to have (literally) 100+ tweets by ONE person a day.

Even if I could process 7,600 tweets per day (100 tweets * 76 people) - there's no way I actually could. I mean, seriously, can you process 500 of ANYTHING in a single day?

That's just one outlet - Twitter. Then there's Facebook. I have a fair number of friends - a lot of whom are really interesting people - and I make every effort to read their status updates and sometimes the links and videos they post. And, more times than not, they have great things to day.

Then there's the "real time" communications - instant messaging via AIM, GoogleTalk, MSN (yeah, I know!), ICQ, and Skype... these generally are the communications that take the place of a phone call. I typically have 3-20 conversations a day (some are really short) to ping friends, colleagues and customers.

Then, there's Skype, my land line phone and my mobile phone. Oh, and then I check my Gmail, email, SMS, and voicemail.

Then, I read blogs and articles, write blogs and articles - and then I check my snail mail.

Ummmm... yeah.

So this past week I entered my time capsule and have only answered phone calls, "traditional" email and voicemail ( ok, ok, so I did a few IM sessions as well) - and I found out that I really felt out of touch. Yeah, I know - it surprised me as well!

So I started looking around for some stuff to help me to collapse all these information streams so I don't lose (what's left) of my mind. Now before I get 1,000 comments, tweets, IM's, emails, voice mails, status updates - I know that there are a great number of tools that will help me manage the Twitter feed.

That's not the problem.

I need something that will help unify all the streams and then help me to put them in context. To help me keep track of my customer's outgoing and incoming communications, my friend's outgoing and incoming communications, my colleagues' outgoing and incoming communications. That way, I have a context in which I can interact.

One of the services I use is called Ping.fm - it helps me to update all my various social networks in one fell swoop. I use Twitterfeed for the same thing for the incoming Tweets. I use RSS readers for blog updates. I use FriendFeed to try to aggregate the social stuff.

The killer app of the future is NOT going to be another way to stream your thoughts or your content. The killer app of the future is one that will coordinate and help you manage all the stuff you're consuming and creating - by author, by group, by relationship type, by content type, by time frame. It will allow you to set a preferred communication channel for each of these contacts and then when you blast your own content - it will reach out and communicate to the masses - but also in a personalized way to the selected contacts you've indicated in the way(s) those contacts prefers to be contacted in.

The future is LESS, not more. Less programs to manage stream of outgoing and incoming communications, less time spent sifting through 12 different types of communications, less hassles in knowing how to communicate effectively with those you need to communicate with.

Yeah, I've seen the future - and less IS more.

Facetweet - Will Facebook Kill Twitter?

Well - as seen on numerous blogs around the world today - it's finally come out that Facebook really DID try to buy Twitter last fall. There had been rumors all over the place that Mark and team was vying to snap up the microblogging site - and roll it into their own offering.

So after the negotiations had come to an unfruitful end (from Facebook's perspective) - they took a play out of the Gates handbook for business 101 - and just decided to build their own microblog format. I say good for them!

Now I don't know Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter personally, and I don't have any inside information as to what they have in the works - but it just seems to me that if someone like Mark Zuckerberg and team come to you and want to buy your brand (for an "undisclosed sum" - read: HUGE cash) - then unless you have a really, really, really good plan to monetize your platform - you should just sell the damn thing.

I mean, really! So, you invented the space of microblogging. Bully for you! It's still not really caught on to the mainstream yet - and your own site's features are so anemic that a whole industry and dozens of others have stepped into the ecosystem to siphon off users from your site (read: less eyeballs for ads)...

So, you have a super simple site - which is a good thing. You have a medium that lots of tech folks (and PR folks) use as sort of a "live AP" feed - also good.

But... ummm... the idea and the tech behind it are... well... just NOT that hard to re-create. The barrier of entry to create another service just like yours is, well, trivial. Just look at all the Twitter-like, me-too spin offs that have come about.

Yeah, you have first-mover advantage, but the Facebook people have a little think called "150 million registered users." Oh, and a valuation that's backed by the largest software company in the world - Microsoft. Oh, and some really, really smart people.... AND... a really robust infrastructure.... AND... did I mention 150 million registered users?

I think it's a good thing that Facebook will put in a microblogging feature - I think that people will use it and that it will really be a welcomed addition to their service. In a way - it's already there. You can see the status updates of your friends, get a "live feed" of what others are doing... so it just makes sense that if you could "broadcast" your status to anyone... you're done.

So - Twitter - unless you're going to announce something (and soon) - I'm afraid you'll be relegated to the MySpace bid of "cool idea, first-mover advantage" slow death. The difference is - you didn't sell out for $850 (while the getting was good).

I hope I'm wrong. Maybe all the people who are addicted to Twitter will continue to tweet forever. I'm sure that people who have used the service for a long time will continue to use it. However, all the "new" people who are just discovering social media (both individuals and businesses) - they WILL sign up for Facebook.

And when they do - they will have a new option to "broadcast" their stuff to anyone on the Internet - as well as to "subscribe" to other feeds. All in the CONTEXT of their friends, customers and other relationships.

OR - they could choose to go to yet another source, start cross posting (or do what I do - and use the EXCELLENT Ping.fm to do it for me) and reading two sets of feeds.

Ummmm... yeah. In-context feeds all in one aggregated place with the largest social network on the planet - or a spartan interface in scrolling format.

My money's on Facebook to win and Twitter to place.

Microblog: Gmail Is Only Human

Nothing in the world works 100% of the time. That's a fact of life.

Why is it then when Gmail goes down for two hours - or the Twitter "fail whale" comes up - people go crazy? Hey - people - do YOU ever do anything 100% of the time - every day, all day, every day of the year?

Neither do I.

Why, then do most people just expect all software, hardware and Internet connections to be up 100% of the time? Well, I guess because we're starting to come to see them as utilities like electricity and phone. They're just supposed to "work" all the time.

And, when they don't - we get a little panicked. Do you remember the last time the electricity went out?

It also means that if you have only a single source for your email (or social networks or whatever) - then you're choosing to put all of your eggs in one basket. That means - that WHEN (not IF) your favorite service goes down (and they ALL will at some point) - take a chill.

Pull out some paper and jot down your notes with a "pen" - or save them in a text file so you can immediately flame the company and have your inflammatory blog post all ready to go when the service DOES come back up.

That's what I do...

America 2.0

All I can say is "WOW." I literally just finished listening t0 president elect Obama... sorry - I mean President Obama give his inaugural speech. Man, is he a terrific orator!

I really am hopeful that he is able to execute on the promises and hopes that he has fired up. I hope and pray that he will be able to really cross the aisles of not just the US Congress, Senate and House - but to also cross the divide that has been created with the rest of the world.

It was really amazing to watch the coming together of people just flooding the Mall in the Capitol. All ages. All faiths. All colors. All Americans.

Even here in the office - we tried to get one of the video feeds going (to no avail) - but we were able to get a live audio feed from an ABC affiliate news station here (KNX News Radio 1070 am). I was able to get the audio feed on my laptop and pumped it out through my desktop speakers so we wouldn't overwhelm our own LAN 0r saturate our ISP with everyone having their own desktop feed.

It was almost like those pictures you see of people gathered around the radio back in the days before television. We were all listening - no one spoke. No one was checking email. No phones were ringing. It was really an almost surreal experience.

President Obama talked about a wide range of topics - including building out infrastructure, helping the poor, warning the crazies, and elevating science and technology back to prominence. However, one of the lines that really struck me was when he said:

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. (emphasis, is mine)

President Obama laid out what he sees as the most critical path to America's problems. He is an incoming leader that has a road map:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.

We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Personally, I believe that it IS possible. We CAN pull together, weather the storm, re-invent ourselves and come out stronger and are all issues that need to be addressed by our country at some point in time.

Yes, I believe America can be re-made. It's America 2.0, if you will. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Maybe not next year. Maybe not during his first 4 year term. But we WILL do it. There is really no other option.

He seems to "get" the fact that technology and social media are an important part of the process - because his process is about PEOPLE, and PEOPLE communicate with each other using technology. I'm not just talking about YouTube and streaming audio. It's more than Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. It's the "old" technology of television and over-the-air radio. It's the technology of providing speech text in advance to all the news outlets. It's the fact that he has people that even give a crap about communicating using ALL mediums all at the same time.

There's a spirit of a level playing field in terms of communication. There's a spirit of a level playing field in terms of common goals, dreams and ideals. It's up to all of us to transform the vision, goals and dreams into reality. Godspeed!

Microblog: Facebook #1?

According to Comscore - Facebook because the largest worldwide network back in the middle of 2008 - but it's still lagging behind MySpace in terms of page views - 76 million unique visitors for MySpace versus 54.5 million for MySpace.

In the US - Facebook's growth was 3.8% per month (a big number when you're talking about those kind of pageview numbers) - versus MySpace's growth rate of just 0.8% (still - a great number given the sheer volume of page views). Assuming that growth rate continues, Facebook should overtake MySpace sometime in 2010.

The question is - who cares? I think the most important social media site is the one that people are using. The one where you can connect with your customers, employees, friends, and colleagues. So it's important to be on the social network they use as their primary contact point. Most people, if they're on social media at all - are NOT on 6 different services. They're on ONE - or maybe TWO...

It sort of comes down to the age-old "cool kid" factor. A few years ago MySpace was the cool kid - and now, I believe, that Facebook is the new cool kid. What do you think?

Microblog: Killing Facebook Friends for a Burger

So in the "what the hell?" category - Burger King as announced a new promotion whereby if you install their Facebook application called "Whopper Sacrifice" in your profile - and you "sacrifice" 10 of your friends - you'll get a free Whopper.

No, I'm NOT kidding. Could even I make this kind of stuff up?

At the time that I write this over 55,000 friends have been sacrificed... geez. Well, I guess Burger King found 5,500 people who don't have two dollars to come into their restaurants... This world really IS going to hell in a handbasket.

Oh, and if you get "sacrificed" by me - it's nothing personal - I'm just hungry.

I Am Therefore I Tweet

My social media experiment these past couple of months has been... interesting to say the least. Like most social newbies who finally figure out what Twitter is - I was posting about 10 times per day. Yes, I was "that guy" - who told my 4 followers all the inane details of the boring crap I was doing everyday.

I was checking Twitter incessantly - and adding people that I was "following" like it was no tomorrow. I would hit "refresh" multiple times per day - and read all the posts from all the people I subscribed to. I would tweet from my iPhone, from my browser, from a friend's computer... I sounded like a damn Minah bird - tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

Then I got a life.

As I cut down on the number of times per day that I would tweet and would read the posts on Twitter, I noticed something interesting things:

1. I actually got more work done
2. People don't really care what I had for lunch
3. Some people "spam" Twitter like a 5 year old with 100+ tweets per day (I've stopped "following" those people)
4. I look forward to the tweets with funny, observant or useful information
5. Only about 20 of the 50+ people I "follow" have anything interesting to say
   

These observations have lead me to be a better Twitter citizen. I now post only stuff that I think other people might be interested in, or might find useful. I've pared down my "following" list to just over 50 people that I actually want to hear from (mainly geeks).

I decided that if I wanted to indulge the "eating ham sandwich" side of me - that I should either set up a separate account for "blather" - or just do like everyone else and post that stuff on my Facebook page.

Then, just as I had completed the Twitter 12 step program, my wife suggests that we try using Yammer - a Twitter rip-off that is meant just for people inside of a specific company (people can only join yammer if they have the same email extension - e.g. @mycompany.com).

Well, Hallelujah! Within the first 24 hours most of the company was on Yammer and were... well... Yammering away. This time, though, no one put what they were eating for lunch. They said what they were working on, what projects where coming online, what interesting sales prospects were saying, comments and suggestions from customers... you know, real "work" stuff.

It's still in the experimental stage, but the results are pretty cool. We have employees in 6 timezones all over the world - and it's cool to be able to get a sense of what they're working on. I'm not sure how to explain it... but it's easier than sending an email, it's less intrusive than IM, and it's fast. The best part is - if no one want to read it (or respond to it), then it's up to them.

If you don't respond to an email or IM, then you're rude and sometimes will cause more than hurt feelings. But if you don't respond to a tweet or yamm (?) - then it's no big deal. You're broadcasting you status - hoping to be helpful, or to give people an idea of what you're working on. You can also ask for feedback, have people check out a link, spread the word about a new success story. It's like a living, Internal newsletter.

Well, with all this social media (special thanks here to Brenda Christensen for keeping the social media banner flying for Servoy!) - my wife (the "other" Brenda) came to me with another suggestion for a useful, online tool that would track what people were saying about any topic. It was basically a free service that would search some sites for any keyword you entered, and show you results on what was being blogged, twittered, etc.

Now I already have a Goggle Alert set up for some key terms - and that works great. But it's limited to what the mighty Google indexes - and not the rest of the world. The site that Brenda suggested - yacktrack - will show you the results of your keyword search across several sites (including Friendfeed, Technorati, Twitter, Google blog search, etc.). It's a pretty interesting service (free for now). The results are interesting - although if you are looking at the blog results, there's no link provided to the actual blog.

I found that the source of the search Google Blog Search - was much more efficient. But, it's nice to have a single service where you can enter a term, and get an overall feel for what the talk is on a topic, then if you're interested, you can always drill down to the actual search engines and get your "hands dirty".

Whew! Now I can finally Tweet-Facebook-LinkedIn-Plurk-Yammer about this entry!

In Social Media We Trust

My entry into the social media realm has been very interesting - to say the least. I've stayed mainly with the mainstream services: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce (shutting down Dec 15th), Jabber, etc.

I've even been able to amass some "friends" on each of the services. I've been pretty careful about who I will add as a connection in each of them - but I was reading an article by Mike Elgan from ComputerWorld the other day that really gave me pause.

He was talking about the fact that it's possible for scammers, theives and other miscreants to "hijack" the identities of people you may really know - and pose as them - in order to gain your confidence for an a scam attack at some point in the future.

He points out some really interesting points: in the social media world we will trust another person who we (think) we know as a "friend." Now that person can see all of our other friends and their profiles. But what I never really stopped to think about was just how easy it would be to steal someone's identity and pose as that person.

Mr. Elgan calls it "How to steal friends and influence people":

Step 1: Request to be "friends" with a dozen strangers on MySpace. Let's say half of them accept. Collect a list of all their friends.

Step 2: Go to Facebook and search for those six people. Let's say you find four of them also on Facebook. Request to be their friends on Facebook. All accept because you're already an established friend.

Step 3: Now compare the MySpace friends against the Facebook friends. Generate a list of people that are on MySpace but are not on Facebook. Grab the photos and profile data on those people from MySpace and use it to create false but convincing profiles on Facebook. Send "friend" requests to your victims on Facebook.

As a bonus, others who are friends of both your victims and your fake self will contact you to be friends and, of course, you'll accept. In fact, Facebook itself will suggest you as a friend to those people.

Yikes! Just think about that for a minute. Someone out there could be on another social media site right now using your name, your photo and your profile to lure people into a scam, or worse. Now, the bad news is - the damage may already be done.

As a precaution, I would suggest that people who are "into" the social media scene (and who isn't these days?) - check out some of the other social media sites by searching for yourself. If you find a fake that's on there - you owe it to yourself to report it to the appropriate service and get the "bad" profile removed.

I've never had to deal with this personally (thank goodness) - so I'm not sure what the policy would be. Do you get to keep the profile up there - but you just take over the username/password? What happens when you want to join that same network after the offending profile as been removed? Can you even keep your same name (your real name) - or will it be blacklisted?

GREAT! Just one more thing to be paranoid about...

If any of you out there have experience with this - or know of someone who does - be sure to leave a comment.

Let The Carnage Begin

"Things always seem to get worse before they get better." If that quote holds any truth - then we're about to see things get worse.

The early indications - besides the Wall Street seesaw, the housing meltdown, weak "Black Friday" and the credit crunch - are starting to make themselves known. In the tech world - when social networking sites start closing (and/or get acquired) it's sort of the canary in the coal mine biting the dust.

This week a couple of sites announced that they were going into the deadpool - Pownce (co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose) and Twing announced they were shutting down. This comes on heels of the death of other sites over the past 4 months - sites that were fairly well funded and had some "good press." Some of them were even founded by very successful entrepreneurs. Here's a small sampling:

• Eyespot ($3.7 million in Oct 06)
• Uber ($7.6 million in funding - May 2008 - cofounded by former Friendster CEO and NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa)
• Wallop (from Microsoft's Research Team)
• Fleck (€225k - based in Netherlands)
• Social.FM ($5 million in funding)
• TripHub ($15 million, founded by Josh Herst, an early member of the Microsoft Expedia team)
• MatchMine ($10.5 million, founded by Mike Troiano, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Interactive and Brandscape)
• Akimbo ($56 million, investors including AT&T and Cisco)
• Capazoo ($12 million)
• etc, etc, etc.

My prediction is that we'll see a lot more of these bubble-2.0-social-media-with-no-business-plan company hitting the skids this month and on into the middle of 2009. I mean, didn't ANY of these people learn ANYTHING from the first bubble?

TIP #1: Eyeballs do not necessarily equal money.

TIP #2: You need money to stay in business.

TIP #3: Just by having a screwed up name that no one can pronounce doesn't mean you'll get money.

TIP #4: See tip #2

Speaking of folks that may have had too much Turkey - the good folks over at Twitter have turned down a $500 million (mostly stock) offer from Facebook.

Um.... yeah. Half a billion dollars for a site with zero business model - and a huge cost structure. Good plan! I know, I know you're "...working on a monetization plan for the middle of 2009...". Good luck with that.

Again, see tip #2...

Unified Contacts - NOW Please

So I've been working with various social media sites for over 2 months now - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Rejaw, Tumblr and I've also been using the hell out of my iPhone (yes, I'm one of those fanboy types who is not having any problems with my phone).

All in all, it's pretty cool. Except for one thing - my profiles. I have profiles on different sites and keeping them up to date can be a pain. It's sort of like keeping track of people when they move, change jobs, or get married and their contact information changes.

I have a copy of their email address and physical address and phone number in my email program, on my phone, and in a Christmas list database. For the contacts that both my wife and I know - she has a copy in her email program, her phone and probably written in her "big black daytimer" as well.

None of these things talk to one another.

What if I update my information? Then I would send out an email to the people I know, update all the social networking sites - and just HOPE that people that I know would even notice that I moved or got a new phone number or a new email address.

And, if you're like me - when you go to a meeting where you meet new people - you carry all your pertinent information on a little 2" x 3" scrap of paper known as a business card. The crappy part is - so does everyone else.

Then, after the event, you get to take those 20 little scraps of paper (sometimes with notes on it - like personal email addresses or a note about the person) and then I get to hand key that information back into my address book. And then find them on LinkedIn. And Facebook. And Twitter. And Rejaw. And Tumblr.

Then I go to the next person - and repeat.

Surly in 2008 - there must be a better way! I'm looking for some digital solution that would allow people to exchange basic contact information with social media sites, and have that data synchronize across my address book to my phone.

It would contain my basic information (like on a Facebook profile) - and allow me to specify what I would share with whom (name and company for strangers, mobile phone for family and selected friends, etc.). Then it would just automatically synch with anyone that has me marked as a friend (or follower or whatever).

I would have just a single place to update my stuff, and I would know that everyone that is linked to me has the most up to date information all the time. And, I would also know that everyone I'm linked TO is up to date as well.

As long as I'm dreaming, I would also put in my preferred method of contact (email, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) and I would be able to update my profile at any time to remove information (I didn't mean to publish my mobile phone number to everyone) and it would just automatically be removed from everyone's data store as well.

The technology exists. It shouldn't be THAT hard to do. The issue (like any other technology) would come down to one of adoption. Adoption of not just the people with the connections - but to people like handset makers who could build in a "update profile" button on their contact management apps, or software developers of either browsers, social media sites and email programs to all write to and read from a set of specifications.

Yeah, good luck on that! I guess I'll just re-order my business cards now....

Public Profile = PUBLIC

In going through all the interesting (and questionable) new business ideas coming out of TechCrunch over the weekend - I stumbled on one of them - iSearch - that, like other sites, will comb the web and allow stalkers of all sorts find out all the information they need about just about anyone.

It's really nothing new - there have been information "aggregators" around for years. They would troll the public sites of local government databases, and sometimes just perform Google (or Yahoo back in the day) searches to put together a "profile" of the person you're trying to stalk locate.

The interesting thing about iSearch is that it allows you to search by not just name and city or state - but also by phone number, or screen name. The site itself isn't "all that" - and it seems that there it's linked in large part to Intelus who appears to be the big aggregator of the information.

On thing I found quite fun - was the fact that it showed basically my LinkedIn profile, including a lot of the people I was connected to - and with a single click - you could get more information on them as well. I think this is just the start. If you leave a big enough digital, public profile - it's just a matter of time (and web services) until anyone will be able to get a full profile of you, your tastes, your music preferences, who your friends are (and their profiles, music tastes, etc).

It's also interesting that according to eWEEK, about 22% of hiring managers look to a person's online profile during the hiring process. When you have basically free access to "people" search engines that will aggregate a bunch of information together on a single person - this will definitely be a trend that is only going to get worse, not better.

The bottom line is that if you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce, Tumblr, Rejaw life - expect it to be aggregated, analyzed and dissected by anyone at any time. For the paranoid of the group - you may want to have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce Tumblr, Rejaw "alter ego" where you can "be yourself" and keep your "actual" public profiles clean and fresh as the morning rain.

In the "old days" (even today) - I can pay a little extra extortion fee to the phone company to keep my phone number unlisted. I wonder what we'll have to do to get "unlisted" from sites like iSearch...